A high-speed rail line between Southern California and Las Vegas moved one step closer to reality Monday when ground was officially broken to mark the start of construction on the project.
Debate about the actual human carrying capacity of Earth dates back hundreds of years. The range of estimates is enormous, fluctuating from 500 million people to more than one trillion. Scientists disagree not only on the final number, but more importantly about the best and most accurate way of determining that number—hence the huge variability.
Every time we’ve run into issues, we’ve innovated our way out of it. We build dams, improve irrigation, seed clouds, desalinate water, etc. I see no reason for this to stop.
There’s probably a theoretical limit, but population growth is slowing, so I doubt we’ll actually hit it. Likewise, space tech is improving, so we’ll probably expand outside the planet as well, which will also result in more innovation for supporting populations on limited resources.
For Vegas, the main concern is water. Energy is cheap and can be much cheaper, so air conditioning shouldn’t be a major concern. In fact, it’s probably better for people to live in deserts because that’s (likely) less of a strain on wildlife vs living in forests or swamps.
Every time we’ve run into issues, we’ve innovated our way out of it.
Is that right?
We’re currently wiping out the Amazon, causing the 6th great extinction, unsustainably using fossil fuels. Billions of people are dependent on very complex supply chains that require massive polluting and ocean life harming ships to get them to you. You can’t even talk about your favorite camping spot without it getting overrun and damaging the ecosystem. Many people can’t afford to see their favorite artists because with a massive population and popular artists that supply and demand is way out of whack. Same with Disneyland etc. We don’t have enough housing, and if we build more we’re going to wipe out even more ecosystems and use even more resources.
Las Vegas? Those solar panels and air conditioners are produced using fossil fuels. Also, the desert is not wasteland, just because desert species may not be your favorite doesn’t mean it’s ok to wipe them out to build more housing tracts.
There are so many aspects of overpopulation, producing enough food, water, and housing are just the tiny tip of the iceberg. These things I brought up are what came to my mind in 2 minutes before I had my coffee.
By saying technology is the way past our problems is to set up a race condition between technological advancements that are not guaranteed (and most likely to exacerbate the rich vs poor gap) and civilization ending destruction that is.
The way you get innovation is by adjusting the incentives and disincentives to match actual, long-term costs. Tax negative externalities and the market will respond. It’s the whole idea behind Piguovian taxes, which I’d like to see more of.
I think this approach would help solve issues like the Amazon, fossil fuel over-reliance, etc.
We don’t have enough housing, and if we build more we’re going to wipe out even more ecosystems and use even more resources.
Sure, if we continue the same way we have. If we instead increase density, it won’t be as much of an issue.
If we increase costs of living in suburbs and reduce the costs of living in cities, we’d see a lot less sprawl and more affordable housing. Specific proposals:
move sales taxes to property taxes - roughly follow the Land-Value Tax idea
higher gas taxes and vehicle registration fees, especially for large trucks (e.g. delivery trucks)
cheap/free transit
cycle/walking paths separate from cars
In other words, nudge people toward living in cities, and reward them with fantastic infrastructure. That sets proper incentives so the market can innovate solutions.
Those solar panels and air conditioners are produced using fossil fuels
Currently, yes. But they don’t need to be. If we jack up fossil fuel taxes, we’ll see a more rapid shift toward renewables. I work in a mining-adjacent industry, and I can tell you that they’d absolutely switch if it made business sense, but fossil fuels are just cheaper.
the desert is not wasteland
Agreed, I actually live in a desert climate and appreciate the natural beauty of the desert.
That said, Nevada is very large, and a lot of it is protected, federal land (like 80%), so moving people to the populated areas in Nevada won’t significantly impact current wildlife. It’s already suburban sprawl, and more people could live there without increasing that sprawl, if the proper incentives are in place.
rich vs poor gap
I also disagree with this notion as well.
Yes, there’s an income gap, but the poor are still better off year over year. The real concern, imo, is that shrinking middle class and immigration limitations. Immigrants start way more businesses than non-immigrants (i.e. innovation), yet at least in the US, there’s a push to limit immigration.
I think there is a problem, but it’s not a “replace the whole system” problem, but more of a “let’s give David more chances to fight Goliath.” That means:
more regulatory exemptions for small companies
reforms for patent system
large penalties for nonsense litigation for large orgs
more liability for execs for crimes committed by their org
And so on. Pair that with carefully thought-out Piguovian taxes and we should see an acceleration of improvements to the climate, income distribution, traffic, etc. The trouble is getting something like this made into law and properly enforced.
These are great ideas and should be implemented, but at best the push the issue of population down the road. These are temporary band-aids to a worsening problem.
A species that grows beyond it’s bounds and kills itself is not intelligent, it’s merely a clever tool user. Let’s prove our real intelligence by being the first species on our planet conscious of the physical bounds, with understanding we have the capacity to to go beyond them to our own demise, and wisdom to actively choose sustainability. Let’s be smarter than bacteria on a Petri dish.
The goal of our species shouldn’t be to fit as many humans as possible on the planet and make everyone sacrifice for it.
But I want to clarify, I’m not in favor of authoritarian limits on reproduction (I’m an anarchist). I suspect, looking at the timing of the human population explosion on the scale of thousands of years, that exploitative economic systems and the ability to cheat the natural energy balance by using prehistoric sunlight energy (fossil fuels) are the drivers of this explosion and if we can eliminate or control those things the population would naturally contract.
So just looking at that, we have 20-30% of our energy use that’s in the process of being replaced or replaceable with renewables, and that’s a conservative estimate of the low-hanging fruit. The numbers are better in more developed countries as well, so as these technologies get cheaper, we’ll see more rapid rollout.
understanding we have the capacity to to go beyond them to our own demise, and wisdom to actively choose sustainability
Yeah, I don’t think that’ll ever happen. We’re generally pretty bad at planning ahead at scale, though we’re pretty good at responding to stimuli.
Instead of trying to get everyone to be wiser, I think it’s more productive and thus better to adjust the stimuli to get the responses we’re looking for. If greenhouse gases are destroying the planet, tax them. If sprawl is killing ecosystems, make it more attractive to build high density housing. And so on.
exploitative economic systems and the ability to cheat the natural energy balance by using prehistoric sunlight energy (fossil fuels) are the drivers of this explosion
I disagree. If that was true, wouldn’t we see a lot more population growth in developed countries and less population growth in poorer countries? Those are the ones using the most energy per capita.
Population growth is greatest in poorer areas, probably because of a mix of poor education and reliance on kids for elder care.
If we improve access to technology and wealth in poorer areas, we’ll likely see growth of energy use in the short term, followed by decreases per-capital as more efficient infrastructure rolls out, and then better access to education will lead to drops in population growth. We can hopefully short circuit the initial growth in energy use by developing cheap renewables so they won’t need to go through the fossil fuel phase first.
In short, if we want to reach a population equilibrium, we should be focusing on technology to improve the lives of people in poorer areas, not pushing for reduced reproduction directly.
That’s just not true. Every time I hear this, it’s assuming current technology and waste. And the estimates I’ve seen are all over the map:
Every time we’ve run into issues, we’ve innovated our way out of it. We build dams, improve irrigation, seed clouds, desalinate water, etc. I see no reason for this to stop.
There’s probably a theoretical limit, but population growth is slowing, so I doubt we’ll actually hit it. Likewise, space tech is improving, so we’ll probably expand outside the planet as well, which will also result in more innovation for supporting populations on limited resources.
For Vegas, the main concern is water. Energy is cheap and can be much cheaper, so air conditioning shouldn’t be a major concern. In fact, it’s probably better for people to live in deserts because that’s (likely) less of a strain on wildlife vs living in forests or swamps.
Is that right?
We’re currently wiping out the Amazon, causing the 6th great extinction, unsustainably using fossil fuels. Billions of people are dependent on very complex supply chains that require massive polluting and ocean life harming ships to get them to you. You can’t even talk about your favorite camping spot without it getting overrun and damaging the ecosystem. Many people can’t afford to see their favorite artists because with a massive population and popular artists that supply and demand is way out of whack. Same with Disneyland etc. We don’t have enough housing, and if we build more we’re going to wipe out even more ecosystems and use even more resources.
Las Vegas? Those solar panels and air conditioners are produced using fossil fuels. Also, the desert is not wasteland, just because desert species may not be your favorite doesn’t mean it’s ok to wipe them out to build more housing tracts.
There are so many aspects of overpopulation, producing enough food, water, and housing are just the tiny tip of the iceberg. These things I brought up are what came to my mind in 2 minutes before I had my coffee.
By saying technology is the way past our problems is to set up a race condition between technological advancements that are not guaranteed (and most likely to exacerbate the rich vs poor gap) and civilization ending destruction that is.
I think this approach would help solve issues like the Amazon, fossil fuel over-reliance, etc.
Sure, if we continue the same way we have. If we instead increase density, it won’t be as much of an issue.
If we increase costs of living in suburbs and reduce the costs of living in cities, we’d see a lot less sprawl and more affordable housing. Specific proposals:
In other words, nudge people toward living in cities, and reward them with fantastic infrastructure. That sets proper incentives so the market can innovate solutions.
Currently, yes. But they don’t need to be. If we jack up fossil fuel taxes, we’ll see a more rapid shift toward renewables. I work in a mining-adjacent industry, and I can tell you that they’d absolutely switch if it made business sense, but fossil fuels are just cheaper.
Agreed, I actually live in a desert climate and appreciate the natural beauty of the desert.
That said, Nevada is very large, and a lot of it is protected, federal land (like 80%), so moving people to the populated areas in Nevada won’t significantly impact current wildlife. It’s already suburban sprawl, and more people could live there without increasing that sprawl, if the proper incentives are in place.
I also disagree with this notion as well.
Yes, there’s an income gap, but the poor are still better off year over year. The real concern, imo, is that shrinking middle class and immigration limitations. Immigrants start way more businesses than non-immigrants (i.e. innovation), yet at least in the US, there’s a push to limit immigration.
I think there is a problem, but it’s not a “replace the whole system” problem, but more of a “let’s give David more chances to fight Goliath.” That means:
And so on. Pair that with carefully thought-out Piguovian taxes and we should see an acceleration of improvements to the climate, income distribution, traffic, etc. The trouble is getting something like this made into law and properly enforced.
These are great ideas and should be implemented, but at best the push the issue of population down the road. These are temporary band-aids to a worsening problem.
A species that grows beyond it’s bounds and kills itself is not intelligent, it’s merely a clever tool user. Let’s prove our real intelligence by being the first species on our planet conscious of the physical bounds, with understanding we have the capacity to to go beyond them to our own demise, and wisdom to actively choose sustainability. Let’s be smarter than bacteria on a Petri dish.
The goal of our species shouldn’t be to fit as many humans as possible on the planet and make everyone sacrifice for it.
But I want to clarify, I’m not in favor of authoritarian limits on reproduction (I’m an anarchist). I suspect, looking at the timing of the human population explosion on the scale of thousands of years, that exploitative economic systems and the ability to cheat the natural energy balance by using prehistoric sunlight energy (fossil fuels) are the drivers of this explosion and if we can eliminate or control those things the population would naturally contract.
I think things are getting better, or at least the groundwork is getting better. Some indicators (numbers come from energy use by sector):
So just looking at that, we have 20-30% of our energy use that’s in the process of being replaced or replaceable with renewables, and that’s a conservative estimate of the low-hanging fruit. The numbers are better in more developed countries as well, so as these technologies get cheaper, we’ll see more rapid rollout.
Yeah, I don’t think that’ll ever happen. We’re generally pretty bad at planning ahead at scale, though we’re pretty good at responding to stimuli.
Instead of trying to get everyone to be wiser, I think it’s more productive and thus better to adjust the stimuli to get the responses we’re looking for. If greenhouse gases are destroying the planet, tax them. If sprawl is killing ecosystems, make it more attractive to build high density housing. And so on.
I disagree. If that was true, wouldn’t we see a lot more population growth in developed countries and less population growth in poorer countries? Those are the ones using the most energy per capita.
Population growth is greatest in poorer areas, probably because of a mix of poor education and reliance on kids for elder care.
If we improve access to technology and wealth in poorer areas, we’ll likely see growth of energy use in the short term, followed by decreases per-capital as more efficient infrastructure rolls out, and then better access to education will lead to drops in population growth. We can hopefully short circuit the initial growth in energy use by developing cheap renewables so they won’t need to go through the fossil fuel phase first.
In short, if we want to reach a population equilibrium, we should be focusing on technology to improve the lives of people in poorer areas, not pushing for reduced reproduction directly.